1. Delete the purposes and principles sections from the bill and replace them with the statement "The purpose of this act is to ensure all New Zealanders in hardship receive the help they need and it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Social Development to do this."

Define hardship.

2. Make the reduction of poverty the aim of social welfare, rather than the current focus on reducing the number of beneficiaries.

Even Labour believes (or used to believe under Clark and Cullen) that paid employment is the best way out of poverty which is why they created the In Work Tax Credit. The current focus is getting people into work to reduce poverty.

3. Write into the bill a recognition of the value of parenting. At present, our welfare system is preoccupied with ensuring as many people as possible enter the paid workforce. This is a short-term approach and fails to take account of the long-term value to the community of parents spending time with their children. In addition, casual, very badly-paid work means that paid work is no longer a guaranteed route out of poverty.

Parents on welfare are far more likely to abuse or neglect their children. Children in a cohort who had contact with the benefit system before age two accounted for 83% of all children for whom findings of substantiated maltreatment were recorded by age 5. More welfare will not equal better parenting.

4. Delete section 70A from the bill. This sanctions women who cannot name the fathers of their children by docking their benefits - initially by $22 a week and later by $28. The main people this punishes are actually the women's children. They are already growing up in a financially-deprived household and further reducing the family's meagre income exacerbates that hardship.

Abolishing this disincentive would increase the single parent benefit bill in two ways. By paying existing mothers who dot not name fathers more, and going forward, recouping less money from the unnamed fathers of whom there would be far more. There are already exemptions made from the Section 70A rule in unusual circumstances.

5. Require the Ministry of Social Development to provide all beneficiaries with all the assistance to which they are entitled. Currently, people seeking help face major difficulties in obtaining their legal entitlements. Research demonstrates that those accompanied by an advocate have a better chance of receiving assistance. Hundreds of people have queued in recent years to receive help from Auckland Action Against Poverty at "Impacts" in Mangere and elsewhere. Voluntary groups should not have to do the job a government agency is funded to carry out.

See 7 below

6. Delete the phrase "long-term welfare dependency" from the bill. This makes welfare a burden, rather than the responsibility of the community and an investment in the future wellbeing of New Zealanders.In other words stop differentiating between those people who use welfare as a temporary support (for which they paid taxes) and those who remain on welfare for years, if not their entire working-age lives, as a matter of choice.

7. Write into law a provision that grants, advances on benefits and other additional assistance are not recoverable by MSD from beneficiaries. If people were not in desperate need, they would not be receiving such help. Requiring them to repay these amounts - as in the case of people staying in Auckland motels at the moment - merely pushes them further into hardship.

This is exceptionally foolish. Here the writer says that people would not be receiving grants etc if they "were not in desperate need." Earlier however she says MSD are not providing "all the assistance to which they are entitled." Which is it? No requirement to repay grants and advances would be open slather.

8. Stop sending mothers convicted of benefit fraud on the basis of a confusing and inconsistently-applied legal test to jail. As these women are already single parents, sending them to jail has disastrous consequences for their children, who end up deprived of both parents. In addition, if the debt established against them cannot be repaid within two years, it should be written off. That is what happens in other parts of our legal system. Pursuing them for the rest of their lives for debts they cannot repay means they can never improve their families' financial position.

So no repayments for grants and advances, no repayments for fraudulently acquired benefits, and now, no jail terms. Why not just issue every beneficiary with unlimited credit, and throw the rule book out the window?

10. Make benefit rates liveable, rather than keeping them very low to punish those who cannot - for many reasons - either find or perform paid work.

How many times does it need to be demonstrated that a single parent receiving a basic benefit, family tax credits and accommodation supplement has an all-up income above the minimum wage. The average sole parent with two children living in South Auckland is receiving around $670 weekly. If she takes in a lodger or shares with another sole parent the household income will be even more "liveable".Even the Greens wouldn't adopt this policy prescription. It's quite insane.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The World Socialist Web Site reports on the memorandum of understanding signed by Labour and the Greens.

Tens of thousands of workers left Labour in disgust following the Labour government’s wave of pro-market restructuring, mass sackings and privatisations in the 1980s, which led to soaring social inequality.The MoU, which aims to prop up this despised party of big business, demonstrates once again the reactionary politics of the Green Party. Like its sister parties in Germany and Australia, the NZ Greens are not a “left” alternative but a party of nationalism, militarism and big business. James Shaw, elected Green Party co-leader last year based on his experience as a business consultant for HSBC bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, has described himself as “a huge fan of the market” and promoted Margaret Thatcher as a model environmentalist.

The Libertarianz used to attack ACT like this, their anger made worse because ACT, the only party professing classical liberalism, too often betrayed it. In reality, a party can only work with what it has and the conservatives (and others of many-coloured coats) were numerous.

But the above piece of vitriol exemplifies how some save their deepest bitterness for those most like them.

Poor old Greens. They would profess disinterest in WSWS opinion but it's not nice being internationally shamed by ideological purists.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Just last Thursday I blogged about the tide turning on society's tolerance for sole parent families.

In this morning's DomPost Jane Bowron has written a column which highlights this perfectly.

Solo-mother-bashing is considered to be a base sport, to be kicking someone when they're down. I understand why people leave violent and abusive relationships, but I have little time for women who think they have sufficient skills to bring several children into the world from different fathers, and have no intention of making a go of it with a decent partner to give children two steady parents to help them grow up.
If he looks like a violent duck, if he quacks like a violent duck, he is a violent duck, so don't breed with him. If he says emphatically that he doesn't want kids, then respect his wishes and don't 'fall pregnant' (I believe it happened because sexual intercourse took place) to him. Take a full inventory of your situation and personality to access whether you have enough in your favour to help your children survive and kick on in the world, financially, emotionally, physically.

When I started campaigning against the DPB in 2001, with a parliamentary petition calling for a review of this particular benefit, the outrage unleashed was enormous, even vicious sometimes. I thought I was prepared for it but I really didn't know what I was getting into. Only a handful of influential people were on the same page.

Now, 15 years later, so many are starting to put the pieces together and actually question the effect sole parenting is having on children.

Bowron still stumbles however with her prescription of 'sucking it up' for the sake of the children. The great dilemma is of course how to help what are innocent children without encouraging more of them. She's says,

Let's find out what's going on, get some statistics, start making policy.

Where has she been hiding? MSD, Treasury, SuperU, Families Commission have produced oodles of research about sole parent families. The welfare reforms were targeted specifically at getting sole parents into jobs (thereby breaking the dependency cycle) and reducing the habit of adding children to existing benefits. Some success is evident but there's a long way to go.

If she wants more policy aimed at taking care of the children but discouraging feckless breeding she might have to look beyond National.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

The Chief Social Worker has taken the unusual step of releasing a practice review of CYF's involvement with the minors who killed Arun Kumar in Henderson, Auckland.

First I need to acknowledge the grief of the family of Arun Kumar.Child, Youth and Family (CYF) had open interventions with both boys accused of his manslaughter.We accept we could have done more to support these boys.CYF’s involvement in their lives began before they were even born.They each grew up in environments where drug and alcohol use, criminal activity, family violence and anti-social behaviour impacted on their lives.Our staff put a lot of time into trying to help these boys on a positive path.But none of this excuses us from admitting that CYF could have done a better job.

My overwhelming reaction is a vision of the thousands more NZ children growing up in similar circumstances. Our prisons are bursting at the seams with young men who have grown up in these environments and, statistics tell us, most have already fathered two, three or more children who will follow suit. It seems to me that even though the official line maintains, "crime is reducing", the incidence of violence spilling over into innocent communities is increasing. Even the bright spot that is reducing teenage births, where many of these tragic families hail from, is probably self-selecting for the worst cases to continue. That is, those females with the most capabilities are also those who will successfully avoid a pregnancy. It's a gloomy day and a gloomy thought.

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About Me

Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio,tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.